Tesco workers refuse to sell Ham & Wine during Ramadan

The outrage is clearly disproportionate. We're not talking about a pilot flying to New York instead of Los Angeles because he feels like it, nor are we talking about a doctor that can't be arsed to treat a patient because he wants a fag break five minutes early. We're talking an isolated incident of thirty seconds' worth of inconvenience in a supermarket.

It might be not in the best interests of the business to assign someone a responsibility which they won't always be willing to take on. But Sainsbury's have a policy of allowing checkout workers to refuse individual sales at their absolute discretion. They don't have to give a reason. They have an 'items per minute' minimum standard to stop them refusing willy-nilly. I think that addresses any potential issues perfectly.

People that go to customer service to complain about a minimum wage employee need to have a look at themselves.

It's a supermarket. You're going to encounter ham in a supermarket. And their wage is hardly relevant. They're being paid to be a job. I don't care what the figure is.

If Sainsbury's want to take a lenient stance with their own employees that's up to them, although I suspect the policy isn't aimed at enabling employees who take personal objection to a particular product to refuse to sell them, and that this would have played out in exactly the same way if it had happened in a Sainsbury's.

I don't see how people are defending this employee.

He took a job and is now refusing to complete the duties which are required for him to do that job, of course he should be disciplined or fired. It may not have been overly difficult for that customer to go to the self-service, but its an inconvenience she shouldn't of had to of faced and i would have complained as well. I work a minimum wage job, that doesn't mean i can start pick and choosing what part of my job description i choose to do and that apparently be perfectly ok.

Where does it end? Vegetarians refusing to sell meat? Vegans refusing to sell almost everything? Seems simple to me, if you can't do that job because of your beliefs, then don't take that job.

People that go to customer service to complain about a minimum wage employee need to have a look at themselves.

If you draw refusing to sell a packet of ham parallel to not flying a commercial airliner full distance on a whim, we'll have to agree to disagree.

As for your second point, it remains to be seen whether the worker is has his employers' backing or not.

No, there is clearly a difference in seriousness between your ridiculous example, which would never actually happen, and the example in issue, which might happen and actually has.

That does not make wage relevant. That a pilot is paid more than a checkout worker isn't obviously relevant. It's the degree of seriousness of the failure to follow instructions that's relevant. On the other hand, both clearly are failures of service which you'd be justified in complaining about.

Salary corresponds to responsibility though. And skills: sacking a pilot is less likely to send him/her under the poverty line than sacking a supermarket employee. I know that sounds patronising on my part towards the lesser skilled worker, but sometimes I think it is better to analyse a problem on practicality rather than principles.

Just a question though, if not for accommodating the beliefs of the worker, why do you think companies such as Sainsbury's allow staff to refuse sales at their entire discretion? Because then surely they are not 'doing their job'?

She's not a "****" at all. If I go to the till with a basket full of shopping and the cashier refuses to serve me for reasons as ridiculous as his religion then of course I'm going to complain.
If you knowingly have ANY reason why you cannot sell ham or wine to a customer then you shouldn't be in a job that requires you to sell ham or wine. End of.